The present invention relates to a card connector for connecting an IC card to an electronic device, such as a cellular phone, a telephone, a PDA (personal digital assistant), a portable audio device and a camera etc., and more specifically to a structure of various switches installed in the connector.
In electronic devices such as cellular phones, telephones, PDAs and digital cameras, a variety of functions are added by inserting an IC card with a built-in memory or control ICs, such as a SIM (subscriber identity module), an MMC (multimedia card), a Smart Media (tradename) and an SD (super density or secure digital) card.
In a connector structure for removably accommodating such an IC card, a plurality of contact terminals made from a metal leaf spring are provided in a connector housing to make contact with a plurality of contact pads formed on the front or back surface of the inserted IC card to electrically connect the IC card to the electronic device mounting that connector. The contact pads of the IC card include a power supply pad connected to a power supply line and a plurality of signal pads for transferring various signals. These contact pads are connected via the contact terminals of the card connector to a power supply circuit and various signal processing circuits in the electronic device.
The IC card of this kind normally employs some means for prohibiting writing operations in order to protect information stored in its internal memory. One such means is a write protect button that can slide between two positions, as in a floppy disk. In such a slide button system, the card is provided with a write protect button that can slide between two positions and which, when it is situated at one position, sets the card to a write-disable state and, when it is slid to the other position, sets it to a write-enable state. On the connector side, a detector needs to be provided that detects the slide positions of the write protect button.
Further, in addition to the slide position signal of the write protect button, the electronic device often calls for a signal indicating whether the card is inserted or not. Hence, the connector should also be provided with a detector for checking the card insertion.
As a sensor structure for detecting a variety of these states, a light-based sensor structure may be conceived. The light-based sensor structure, however, has drawbacks that a sufficient detection precision cannot be expected as the card becomes thinner and smaller and that the installation of a light sensor can be a hindrance to reductions in size and cost. Hence, a sensor structure utilizing engagement and disengagement of a contact leaf spring is considered the most promising structure overall.
When these detectors are to be constructed of contact leaf springs, because each detector requires a pair of contact leaf springs, the total number of contact leaf springs and contact leaf spring support structures required in the connector as a whole is two times the number of detectors.
Such a construction therefore has a large number of parts making up the detectors and requires a large space to accommodate these parts, which is detrimental to reducing the weight, thickness and size of the connector structure.
The present invention has been accomplished under these circumstances. It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-described problems by providing a card connector which can construct one or more switches in the connector with a reduced number of parts and accommodate these switches in a smaller space efficiently.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a card connector is provided, which comprises: a connector housing having a lower housing and a metal upper housing; contact terminals arranged to engage external contacts of a card inserted into the connector housing; and one or more switches each operated by an engagement and disengagement of a pair of metal pieces; wherein one of the each pair of metal pieces making up each of the switches is formed in the metal upper housing.
In this invention, one of each pair of metal pieces making up each of the switches is formed in the metal cover body made from a worked metal sheet. This construction can reduce the number of parts of the switches and also the space of the connector.